Graviteam

I'm new to this game and liking it very much (I have the NTA 1.8 installed with updates and missions), but I noticed some strange behavior in relation to the way the panther takes damage, the main gun seems to break very easily from non penetrating hits to the front of the turret, even a significant distance from the gun itself. None of the other tanks i've used have this problem.

I did some testing in the 'firing ground' mission shooting at the panther at 1km with pz39 ammo shooting at the front of the turret (not directly at the gun barrel itself) , none of the hits penetrated but about 40-50% of the time the main gun would be broken by the hit.  This seems a bit high (kinda nullifies the advantage of the good turret armour), so are there any fixes or ways to reduce this?

Probably a job for the someone who made the model panther.go.
I had a look at it and its gun is made slightly different than other tanks for whatever reason, it has the piece db_gun embedded inside the mask, barrel and turret and the main gun piece is db_barrel.  The other tanks just have db_gun for the entire barrel.
The armor map appears fine though.

Yeah I used to complain about the same thing ever since SPM 2.0 came on in late 2012. It's not only the Panther but the Tiger II as well ( to a lesser degree)seems prone to have its gun disabled even when shots will deflect on the front armour without touching it or sometimes simply when shots hit the ground in front of the tank... They modified or remodelled the Panther A and D armour maps and go files back in December 2011 ( the original Panther D model was introduced in Sept 2010 the others models( A and G)came much later).As Flanker pointed out it's due to the way the gun barrel is embedded. Try increasing the value of the armor_str of the panthers in the tech_cfg files from 2000 to 2040. That should help reducing the frequency a little.

//êîýôôèöèýíò ñíàðÿäîñòîéêîñòè
   armor_str   =   2000;

Should I do it for all the panthers or just the D model?

That'd mess with all the armor on the panther (and probably wouldn't work) I could try thickening the barrel on the armor map but might not work.  Best would be to correct the gun parts on the model.

Could u demonstrate er investigation with a screenshots? I didn't see a long time a complains about gun broken. At this time almost all panthers has two barrels to exclude this problem:
- fake d_barrel
- real db_gun
Only in case, if db_gun hit, then u've malfunction.

Didn't mess that much with the Panther armour values which, in my opinion, are underestimated and worked for me as it reduced the incidence of guns damaged by over 50%...

How do you post Larger Images? The file size is too big for me to attatch.

To make screenshot u've to press F12 during the game, then find the picture in the directory:
Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942\users\scrshots

Then register at this service
http://postimg.org
 and upload there a screenshots.

For my tests I tried to put one shot each on the left and right of the gun although I missed sometimes. Right shot was always 1st shot. stug 3 as firing vehicle.

http://postimg.org/image/xes0fb32z/
http://postimg.org/image/c15zagrx7/
pz39 ammo at 1km. Crew abandoned tank after 1st shot.

http://postimg.org/image/vo8zdtljv/
http://postimg.org/image/aarjmpzrv/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/4rp05i2qj/
http://postimg.org/image/d64mtl3rv/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/i289la3x7/
http://postimg.org/image/wgbnd0pqz/
pz 39 at 540m

http://postimg.org/image/kv1h5b49n/
http://postimg.org/image/9swe6va6z/
pz 39 at 1km, only 1 shot, crew abandoned tank (not surprised that gun was damaged for this one, didn't expect crew to bail though).

For shots at 540m the gun was always knocked out after 2 shots.

For shots at 1km gun remained undamaged after 2 shots about 40% of the time.

I also fired at the front of the king tiger ~500m to test but it's weapon was never damaged.

OK, I see. This is a very good investigation! As my point, all damages are reasonable. Means, shell hit the mask and created a fragments, which damaged the main part of the gun.
Anyway, if u're not satisfy with existent set up of the Panther D, then open the file:
\data\k42\loc_rus\levels\levels\tech_cfg\panther.engcfg
and add parameter db_gun to the massive notrace(), i.e.


In this way, game engine will not calculate the damage of the gun.

PS
I'd like to recommend to use Thumbnail for Forums (1) link to upload the image. In this case user have a look at the thumbnail and it's more informative to pick up interesting picture.

Ok, that seems reasonable. I think I might try putting the armour_str to 2015 to reduce just a little bit without removing altogether, the other panthers have 2030 in their files and I don't remember them being particularly vulnerable.  Just out of interest is there any way you can look at the armour maps fully assembled to see what they look like?

 Ahhhhhhh lockie, I don't think db_barrel should be in the notrace section, otherwise db_gun will have no armor! (the armor map is for db_barrel on the panther)  ;D

I took it out and the gun seems to not take damage from non direct hits now.

All armor maps located here:
data\k42\loc_rus\armor_maps

Each part of the model, which has a texture - automatically has armor map ;)
(http://s5.postimg.org/9xoew95w3/gun.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/9xoew95w3/)

SF has many interesting moments as pros and cons  8)

I took it out and the gun seems to not take damage from non direct hits now.

What did you take out just to be clear? You removed the entry d_ barrel from the list in notrace()....

Lockie; what is that notrace for anyways?

Wrong panther!

The one Bob is testing is the Panther D (panther.go) ( the first entry in panther.engcfg)    it has no texture on db_gun.
It has this for the the notrace section, I've commented out db_barrel.


I believe no trace chunks are parts that a incoming fire won't interact with, won't "hit".

Also lockie how did you get textures into the model viewer, I've only got matte models.

Massive notrace does that any parts of the model which has included into it - becomes invulnerable. Game engine doesn't calculate the damage for these parts.

U're right. db_gun of the "Panther D" doesn't has a texture. Good testing! I've recovered texture for the db_gun, thus armor map applied on this part. Place db_barrel in the massive notrace is not good idea, coz if the shell hit db_barrel we will get a deco on the barrel, but in fact gun would not be damaged.
Here's fixed "Panther D" for the new testing.
http://www.4shared.com/rar/l2NyKpjYba/panther_D.html
(http://s5.postimg.org/tgt05m4nn/panth.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/tgt05m4nn/)

I don't understand the question. Model viewer does Object Editor? What does matte model?

matte model

It means they are not transparent; they are greyed out or opaque most likely....

Does anybody know what kreplenie and tros stand for?

I'm still confusing  :D I need a picture to see what matte model does.

Frinik, I know!  ;D

Matte, like plain, with no texture.

(http://i.imgur.com/7DQOsen.jpg)

Also are you saying I should have db_barrel on the notrace list or off it?

OK, I see (matte also means pal, gay?) U've matte model "thanks" to the improved  adjustment with a texture in config file.
      tbump, -1, 2;
      bump, -1, 2;
      trans, -1, 2;
      techn, -1, 2;

Change "-1" on "0".


Yes. If u don't, then u'll see deco(stamp/trace) on the barrel when shell hit it. Same situation with i.e. antenna. If shell hit it then u'll see a trace from shell.

matte also means pal, gay???


You mean Mate ? ;D It means Friend or Buddy especially in Australia or somebody either your spouse or partner amongst humans and animals you have children with.....( to mate in English = to procreate, to have offsprings)

It used to be a rank in the navy in former times....

Ok thanks!

So lockie care to enlighhtem as to what kreplenie and tros mean?

kreplenie is mount
and
tros is cable

I was about to get some profit from u, but unfortunately Flanker15 translated it already without payment at all  ;D
kreplenie means some kind of strengthening, like ski-binding. Suppose it should be strong and soft.
It does i.e.:
- strengthening two surfaces with a glue (soft)
- strengthening two surfaces with a bolts (strong)

tros means steel rope, which used to pull out tank or other techniks, in case if engine broken or whatever.

Frinik, thank u for explanations what does "mate" ;)

That rating is still in effect in the Navy as far as I know.

Thanks for the translation Tanker! Didn't realize you were Russian!

I'm pretty sure Tanker is American :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O6x_m4zvFs

By the way what is the difference betwen armor_str, armour_qual and armor_frail, what do they each affect? I read somewhere armour_frail has an effect on spalling?

I think he means matte, as the opposite to gloss, how the color is reacting to light, other words for it is dull or dim color =)


And about the gun damage. We (as in I and lockie) experimented with the Panther G and added one physical gun and a fake one, that way bullets and spalling could hit the "fake one" without damaging the real one. So i know the  Panther G have it and it worked good during testing. Dont know if this was added to the other ones aswell. But in the end its not a problem with the model itself, Its how the game engine reacts a little weird sometimes =)

And you also need to take in account how the shells bounce after they hit the mantlet. At Bobs first pictures it looks like the shell bounced downward and penetrated the upper plate above driver and mgunner. That would explain all the damage on the tank =) Like transmission etc, (it is infront and between those crewmembers)
Interesting fact about that, it was a real world problem on the panthers, thats why they added that little chin on the mantlet on the Panther G :D

And also have the original Panther D and G max models. So i can change stuff on them if necessary =)

Yeah we fixed it, the PantherD's real gun had no texture so no armor and since the fake gun was set to no trace the real gun had 0mm of armor.

Also shouldn't the barrel (the fake gun on the Panthers) be allowed to be hit, it's small but its effects on shots coming in from the front is real (slowing, deflecting shells).

armor_str is empiric coefficient to define the hardness of the armor. Usually it has value "2000". In case, if armor has hardening surface (i.e. BT-5), then coefficient should be "2100". Let's say each "100" will add ~30mm additional armor.

armour_qual means quality. Better(more) quality - harder armor. Ideal is "1.0", but sometimes tank has the value "1.1" or even more :)

armor_frail means the quantity of spalling. Less value -> less spalling -> better armor.
I.e. u may set up armor_frail = 0 and check on feature invulnerability, thus no any enemy tank/gun will kill the user's tank ;)

Why 2 factors for hardness, or is armour_qual more for ductility/malleability?
I looked at the bt5's file, it has hardness of 2200, does it have ultimate hard armour or something  :)

Also I retested the panther D with the new .go file and got pretty much the same results as 1st tests.

edit-do the mini yellow arrows for the hit vectors give the ricochet direction of a rebounded shell?, if so why are they there even when a shell penetrates?

No the yellow arrow is the normal.


Try commenting out db_barrel in the notrace section of the config.

   //нетрассируемые чанки
   notrace()
   {
      d_hole_00;
      d_hole_01;
      d_hole_02;
      d_hole_03;
      d_hole_04;
      d_hole_05;
      d_instrument_01;
      d_tros_01;
      d_instrument_02;
      d_tros_02;
      d_kreplenie_01;
      d_kreplenie_02;
      d_launcher_head_01;
      d_launcher_head_02;
      d_shield;
      d_light_03;
      d_deco_small;
   \\   db_barrel;

This will make the panther's barrel solid so it'll have another layer of armor over the gun.

Because of the different types of the armor. As I told above, if tank armor has hardened surface, then coefficient should be 2100 or even 2300.
armour_qual is a common coefficient. I.e. for the soviet tank it should not be more 0.8 or even less. I think it simulates the quality armor: how many cracks/holes/splits/blebs has armor. For example, even in 1945 soviet tanks has splits with a length of ~(170-2200)mm from the factory.

It does that BT-5 armor has hardened surface(face hardened steel).

Then we have a problem and should ask Donken to re-design "Panther D" ;) Would be good to get "Panther D" with random shields appearing!
As a temporally decision: include db_gun in massive notrace.

There is smth. with "normal to surface". I don't know exactly. For me more interesting to see bright vector or not?

I tested with db_barrel commented out and had no problem with weapons damage anymore, which is good. Does this method still allow the gun to be damaged (not just disabling the affect entirely) ? If so then I guess problem with panther D is fixed, no need to redesign.

This is my old screen where I managed hit the barrel 3 times. How to name these 3 patterns on the muzzle brake? Traces?
(http://s5.postimg.org/wwywke61f/01_kuch_800.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/wwywke61f/)